Description

English

Spanish

French

Japanese

English

Spanish

French

Japanese

Yom published his first fiction, the stories Hakjigwang and Sangwang in 1919. (Yom, booksleeve). In 1921 Yom’s story Frog in the Specimen Room was published in the journal Dawn of History, and in 1922 one of his most famous (and translated into English) works On the Eve of the Uprising was published. Yom returned to Japan and wrote the novels Two Minds and Love and Crime. While working at the Chosun Ilbo, Yom wrote a third novel, Running Wild. Perhaps Yom’s most famous work is Three Generations, a 472 page novel which was published in 1931. As was common at the time, the novel was published in serial chunks, in this case in the Chosun Ilbo. At the time, this was the only way that fiction was being published in Korea (Kim, in Yom, 473). The novel was not initially recognized as important, only being published as a book in 1948.

As time went by, Yom’s importance to Korean literature was recognized. In 1953 Yom was recognized with the Seoul Culture Award, three years later receiving the Asia Freedom Literature Award, and a year after that, in 1957, he received the National Academy of Arts’ Contribution Award. One year before he died in 1963, he was also awarded the March 1st Culture Award and the Korean President’s Medal (Yom, booksleeve).

In Korea’s modern history, literature has always been important, and it has always served as a spotlight on, and assessment of social conditions of its era. Yom Sang-seop, who focused on the suffering pursuant to colonialization demonstrates how literature can reflect and respond to reality. Readers looking to achieve an understanding of Korean literature, and Korean society, in the early decades of the 20th century, should strongly consider reading the works of this iconic author.